You’ve probably heard that a sting operation caught three young men who allegedly planned terrorist activities to protest the NATO summit in Chicago. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the three “allegedly plotted to firebomb President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s North Side home, as well as police stations and squad cars.”

Whether the three are guilty or not I do not know. What’s fascinating to me is the way this little issue is being portrayed by bloggers.

At Firedoglake, we read:

The NLG [National Lawyers Guild] attorneys representing the arrestees have not been shown any police records on any “month-long investigation.” The details I have been able to gather from speaking to arrestees personally make it seem like the police have, in the past 48 hours, fabricated all of these details about having some investigation in progress. Yet, the press get to see the records on arrestees so that the police can be sure people take the charges against the activists seriously and do not suspect police abuse or repression of activists. …

…It is important to recall that back in 2008, prior to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, eight activists were preemptively raided and ultimately charged with “conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism.” The national security state has a script, and when it comes to “National Special Security Events,” they stick to that script pretty well.

So that’s one perspective, which I neither endorse nor dismiss. Certainly there is a long history of police-state tactics targeting demonstrators, especially around large conventions and summit meetings. There’s more than a whiff of entrapment in this story.

Of course, there’s also a long history of hot-headed young men who want to blow stuff up. I’m making no assumptions here.

Rightie bloggers have another view, which is that the three indeed are deranged terrorists working on behalf of the Occupy movement. Per the Sun-Times article, the three found each other through an Occupy Chicago housing board. In the simple world of James Hoft, that makes them “#Occupy NATO terrorists.”

Hoft doesn’t mention the three alleged terrorists were allegedly planning to bomb Obama campaign headquarters. However, commenters brilliantly deduced Chicago + terrorism = Bill Ayers (example).

The Breitbrats also forgot to mention that the alleged terrorists were going to firebomb Obama campaign headquarters and Rahm Emanuel’s home. But the commenters wasted no time in deciding that Obama himself was behind the plot:

Hold on to your butts. Ask yourself, “Why did they decide to have NATO in Chicago, anyway?” Ya all are gonna have a knee-jerk reaction to these kids. “Stupid hippies,” and i don’t disagree. They’re responsible, yes, yes, of course, but THEY ARE ALSO BEING PRODDED TO VIOLENCE AND PROTEST BY THE INVISIBLE HAND. Obama cannot have his revolution without division, chaos, and flame.

Just another way for the Obama admin to launder (our) money for his homeys in Chicago.

Here you get the best of both worlds — it’s police oppression creating false terrorists, and the Obama Administration is behind it:

So, now our federal government has given up on the muslim terrorists and are going to create fake domestic terrorists at home? And you’re right!!! Why even have this in Chicago in the first place? Have you ever heard of “FALSE FLAG?” Just wait… something crazy is going to happen and Obama is going to try to emerge as the HERO to give himself an election boost… The fix is in for this NATO Summit. I’m so sick of this crap! These people (the feds) are so predictable!

BTW, I find the video highly annoying. There’s nothing productive about yelling the “F” word at a police station.

The “get a brain, moran” award has to go to the commenters at Weasel Zippers. Here at least the blogger headlines the part about blowing up Obama headquarters, and the commenters still think Obama was behind it. Sample:

thank you barak insane obama,
mmmm, mmmm, mmmm
you and ayers are great leaders
teachers, or terrorist tactics
jackass

The Weasel Zippers crowd are not famous for eloquence. All the comments are pretty much on that level.

See also Cannonfire.